Brian Wilson 1942-2025

 I've hardly been posting on here, but the death of Brian Wilson hit me harder than I expected. I was a Beach Boys fan before The Beatles hit America, and I can still listen to their old music and think "This is cool." Right now, I'm listening to "Surfer Girl" from a cassette by Time-Life called "The Beach Boys 1962-1967" from a set called "The Rock 'n Roll Era." I bought a complete set of these with a rack from a thrift shop. When I see someone's collection, whether the person gave it up or the survivors sold it, I feel like I have to keep it together. In addition to "Surfer Girl,"Be True To Your School" and "In My Room" were favorites of mine from the early days.

In the summer of 1965, I traveled to California by car with my friend Joel, his parents, and his cousin from Brooklyn. We had only t-shirts and shorts to wear, so we were surprised by snow on the ground in Wyoming, froze in San Francisco, and, 15 year olds that we were, we were stopped by the police in Los Angeles for being out at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles after curfew. We wondered why nothing was happening at this famous intersection. We made it Ensenada in Baja, hung out at the beach, and came home via a southerly route. We just missed the Watts riots. "California Girls" had just come out, and we thought it was about the coolest song we had ever heard. When we got home to Baltimore, we found out that our new favorite song had not yet been released on the East Coast.

I continued to listen to The Beach Boys, although my main love at sixteen was Motown music. I bought "Pet Sounds" when it came out. I can admit now that it was too deep for me. Like everyone, I was moved by "God Only Knows," but the song that hit me hardest was "I Guess I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." Even at sixteen, I was beginning to think that might be true, and that song continues to hold meaning for me. 

I continued to collect Beach Boys albums, particularly liking "Surf's Up" and "Holland." At the time I didn't know what was going on Brian's life, only that they were  no longer in the "my girl, my school, my car, my surfboard" era. 

Fast forward to 1985. I was living in Los Angeles, ironically, since my first trip there I hated the city. I was working for Social Security as a first-line supervisor, and although I was good at the job, I could see I wasn't going to stay there. I took a class at UCLA Extension called "The Career Exploration Seminar." I thought I might be an actor, starting at thirty-five. There was a gorgeous woman in the class, an actress who thought she was too old to get parts. She encouraged me to try acting. The last night of class, we all went out to eat later. She lived with her boyfriend at an address on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. He was a therapist, handsome enough, probably fifty at the time, with a diamond stud earring. I said "You must be doing well to live on PCH in Malibu." He smiled at me and said "I actually only have one client right now."

That mystery lasted until I bought a Brian Wilson solo album, where the woman in class was listed as cowriter on some of the songs, and on the liner notes, he thanked his therapist, Eugene Landy, the man I met at that restaurant.

I tried to complete my collection of Beach Boys albums. "Beach Boys Today!" became a favorite, especially the song "Kiss Me Baby," a perfect expression of teen angst, and a gorgeous piece of music.

I moved to Morgantown, West Virginia with my husband (we met in 2005 and legally married in California in 2008). He is a rabbi and was hired by Tree of Life Congregation here. People encouraged me to go to Osher Life-Long Learning, since I had no plan to work here. I saw some of the classes people taught about music, and I started teaching about my favorite music. One of my first classes, which I later taught in a more expanded version, was about The Brill Building sound. I had a book about it. Like me, Brian was a fan of "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, and cribbed some of his orchestration from Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." 

I pretty much devoured the 2014 film "Love and Mercy" with Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian. Eugene Landy was much better-looking than Paul Giamatti, who played him in the movie. When we bought a used Honda Civic in 2018, I showed the pretty blonde saleswoman the trailer. She screamed "Oh God, is that Elizabeth Banks? I love her." Brian married the car salesperson in real life. 

I came to learn about the split between Brian and Mike Love, grieved over the deaths of Dennis (my crush for longer than I care to admit), and Carl, who kept the group together when Brian was having issues. 

For my fiftieth birthday in 1999, I threw a "Soul Oldies Dance Party." I bought four tickets to see Brian at The Wilton Theater in Los Angeles. My friend Jeff and I went with a lesbian couple we knew. We were in the front row. Brian introduced a song he wrote in memory of his brother Carl. He was met with weak applause from most of the crowd. I could see how angry he was. He brought out an electric guitar and played "Barbara Ann." not an original Beach Boys song, but the Beach Boys' cover was popular. People jumped up and screamed, and I could see the look of contempt on Brian's face. 

I recently found a copy of the reissue of "Carl and  The Passions So Tough" and "Holland," of which I had a decades-old copy. I still collect solo albums by Carl and Dennis. I cherish my CD copy of "That's Why God Made The Radio." When it came out, I watched the video over and over. Thinking about it though, I knew no one drives on PCH when there is no traffic, no group of young people are all happy and skinny like those actors, and they wouldn't be excited to meet The Beach Boys. What The Beach Boys sold us was a fantasy of California, not necessarily the real thing, at least not often. 

The Beach Boys were faves of mine from the time I was twelve, and I continued to love their new music long after the end of Motown and the breakup of The Beatles. 

I'm not the kind of genius who can write and arrange music, and I was never a great actor, but I can appreciate great art, like Brian's songs, and also how hard life can be, and how we deal with our difficulties, even when we are materially well off.

The great musicians we loved as teenagers in the 1960s, if they managed to live past thirty, are all in their eighties now, and like Brian Wilson and Sly Stone this week, may not last long. At least they've left us an enduring legacy that I hope we can pass on to the next generations.

The Beach Boys - Light And Dark

Like most people my age (66 next week) I love The Beach Boys. They were an important part of our youth. They spoke to our culture, even if we didn't own a car or live near a beach, or have much experience with girls. Musically, although we would never admit it, they were a bridge between our parents' love of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and our love of Chuck Berry-early Elvis rock and roll.

This summer, the Brian Wilson bio-pic Love and Mercy came out. Joe and I saw it around July 4 in Columbia, Maryland, on the way back to my sister's house from a day in Baltimore while we were on vacation. Like most arty movies, it never played in Morgantown. The movie was both exhilarating and depressing. I loved seeing recreations of the early Beach Boys, and the recording sessions for Pet Sounds, one of the most acclaimed albums in history. The rivalries within the group, the bickering, and Brian's descent into craziness was hard to watch.

I thought I would add to my résumé of classes at OLLI, the "school" for people over fifty, by teaching a class about The Beach Boys. I've already taught about the Brill Building, Motown, and the British invasion from 1964-1969. Today, October 15, I'm teaching the albums from late 1967 to 1973. Hard times for the group.

Most of the Beach Boys albums I bought new were after the group's peak popularity. Two of these, Surf's Up, from 1971, and Holland, from 1973, are among my favorites. Yet these did not sell well when they were new. People were listening to Elton John and Carole King, Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack in those days.

I've been researching as much as I can about The Beach Boys. I've gone back and listened to the albums, read one book about the group and one specifically about Brian Wilson, watched dozens of YouTube videos, and read countless Wikipedia articles.

The Beach Boys really were America's post-war band. they grew up in a boring suburb and had parents who gave them everything at a tremendous psychological price. They were immensely talented but only their junky stuff is what people like ("Barbara Ann" for instance). As a singer, I appreciate that they were always in tune with each other, even when performing live. They sang harmony as well as the great vocal groups of the 50s that Brian so admires. I saw them twice at the Baltimore Civic Center when I was a teen, once in their red-striped shirts, and once with beards and hippie clothes.

Like many of us, they made bad choices about drugs and sex in the sixties and seventies, lost control of their money and their lives, and yet still keep going.

In their later years, they are doing what they can, even if they don't speak to their own family members, nursing hurts and recriminations that are decades old.  The Beach Boys will appear in Zanesville, Ohio, next week. The ads point out that the group consists of Mike Love (who won the right to the group name in court) with Bruce Johnston, who has been with the group since 1965. Brian Wilson is still recording music. He was interviewed in Rolling Stone about the harrowing movie about his life. When asked if things were that bad, he says they were worse.

In Love and Mercy, Brian is under the care of psychologist Eugene Landy, who controls Brian's entire life. This is my Hollywood one degree of separation story.

I took a class at UCLA Extension in 1985 called "The Career Exploration Seminar." At the time, less than a year after my move from Miami to Los Angeles, I was working as a supervisor in the SSI program at the Watts Social Security office. The managers hated me, I still believe because I wouldn't work Saturday overtime, and because I directed my United Way donation to The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Center. I knew I was going to leave there. After some research, directed by the teacher, I thought I would like to be an actor, a cliché about newbies in L.A. There was a gorgeous woman in the class named Alexandra Morgan, an actress. She wanted a new career because, being past thirty-five, no one would hire her. Having never met such a beautiful woman, I was shocked. She encouraged me to give acting a shot. At the last class, we exchanged addresses. She lived on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, where the movie stars live. I asked her about that and she said "I live with my boyfriend."

 We all went out to a restaurant and the boyfriend came. I sat next to him. He looked a little crazy, sort of like Jack Nicholson playing a crazy person. He was older, maybe fifty, in good shape, and with a diamond stud earring. I asked him what he did for a living. He told me he was a psychologist, and when I said he must do well out there in Malibu, he said "Actually, I only have one patient." I never saw him or Alexandra again. He was Dr. Eugene Landy, Brian Wilson's doctor.  I found out three years later, when Brian came out with an allbum, and on the liner notes, thanked Dr. Landy. Some of the songs listed Alexandra Morgan as lyricist. I don't know if Dr. Landy was as bad as he is portrayed in the movie. He was better looking, for sure.

Everyone has their troubles and grief. We are all under appreciated in some way. A friend now is gravely ill. Her family members, who rarely speak to her, are coming to Morgantown today to see her. Joe is spending much of the day at the hospital. He has written a beautiful prayer asking God for healing when things look desperate. Two women at The League of Women Voters meeting last night told me about their terrible diagnoses and the trials of chemotherapy. I'm just recovering from angioplasty, and I'm lucky to still be alive.

Brian Wilson has lost his two brothers and is estranged from his cousin who helped found The Beach Boys. I know that for many years he didn't see his children from his first marriage. In the Rolling Stone article, he talks openly about being old, about his patterns of behavior and how he copes with his mental health issues.

I cry when I hear Beach Boys songs like "When I Grow Up To Be  A Man," written when they were young and wondering, like all of us, what their lives would be like. Now we know, and even if we are happy, as I would say I am, it's heartbreaking to look back at all that has happened.

The Beach Boys, at least the ones we remember from the early 1960s, are still popular. We think about the pretty girls, the handsome young men (HYMs) we were or wanted, the powerful impractical cars of the era, and the optimism of the times.In my class, we're going forward into a darker era. It should be interesting.